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Why are Americans this obsessed about race? If this isn't idée fixe I don't know what is. Like in most other parts of the civilized word racial statistics shoul

Why are Americans this obsessed about race? If this isn't idée fixe I don't know what is. Like in most other parts of the civilized word racial statistics should be outlawed because it's not a correct classification system.

rbecker 6y ago
There are places where racial statistics are outlawed?
- julienreszka 6y ago
  I can give you the example of France, my country where they are illegal, this is a relevant legislative text: https://www.cnil.fr/fr/la-loi-informatique-et-libertes#article6 https://www.cnil.fr/fr/la-loi-informatique-et-libertes#artic... Translated with google: "It is prohibited to process personal data which reveal alleged racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs or the trade union membership of a natural person or to process genetic data, personal data biometric for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, health data or data concerning the sexual life or sexual orientation of a natural person."
  - lixtra 6y ago
    It comes with the qualifier. > for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person So making a poll in your company to identify how many are in a trade union is not illegal by that article while building a database that contains the fact that John Doe is in a trade union would violate that law.
uselesstech 6y ago
I don’t understand what you are saying, how is simply gathering data of the state of the world a problem? Science is based on assessing data and creating hypothesis based on that data. Racial statistics is just another vector to assess our society. You would expect that race would not be a factor and thus be evenly distributed across professions/positions of power in a country. When you look at the data and see that is not the case, why not try to look at the factors that account for that discrepancy? Just because the variable we looked at is race doesn’t mean racism is the cause but you can’t even assess whether it is without the data first. Why should we allow statistics to be gathered on the basis of religion or gender? Now I’m curious, in French law, are racial statistics banned for research in medical outcomes or disease?

rbecker 6y ago

There are places where racial statistics are outlawed?

julienreszka 6y ago
I can give you the example of France, my country where they are illegal, this is a relevant legislative text: https://www.cnil.fr/fr/la-loi-informatique-et-libertes#article6 https://www.cnil.fr/fr/la-loi-informatique-et-libertes#artic... Translated with google: "It is prohibited to process personal data which reveal alleged racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs or the trade union membership of a natural person or to process genetic data, personal data biometric for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, health data or data concerning the sexual life or sexual orientation of a natural person."
- lixtra 6y ago
  It comes with the qualifier. > for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person So making a poll in your company to identify how many are in a trade union is not illegal by that article while building a database that contains the fact that John Doe is in a trade union would violate that law.

uselesstech 6y ago

I don’t understand what you are saying, how is simply gathering data of the state of the world a problem? Science is based on assessing data and creating hypothesis based on that data. Racial statistics is just another vector to assess our society. You would expect that race would not be a factor and thus be evenly distributed across professions/positions of power in a country. When you look at the data and see that is not the case, why not try to look at the factors that account for that discrepancy? Just because the variable we looked at is race doesn’t mean racism is the cause but you can’t even assess whether it is without the data first. Why should we allow statistics to be gathered on the basis of religion or gender? Now I’m curious, in French law, are racial statistics banned for research in medical outcomes or disease?